You have to become well familiar with the backgammon board and the pieces at first.
You have two colors of backgammon pieces available in each game. Even though the pieces can be of any two colors, usually there is a standard light and dark color. Generally, the light color will be white and the dark color will be almost black or red. Some sets have the shades of cream or off-white for the light color. Each player will get one set of colors of their pieces.
On the backgammon board, each player has 15 checkers-style pieces. Four regular dices and one doubling cube with each set are used. Most backgammon games come along with shakers for shaking and rolling the dice.
The backgammon game board is divided into four equal segments or quadrants. Each quadrant has six extended triangular patterns. Mostly, alternate colors are used for the triangles in the boards. This makes the counting easier of how many spaces a player is moving. And, thus makes the backgammon board setup simpler. There is a bar in the down to the center of the board. The bar is considered as a temporary space that can accommodate the pieces which the opponents knock during the game.
You can play in either direction in the backgammon board, which means the setup can also be done in the reverse. The important point here to note down is, both you and your opponent should use the exactly same number of pieces when setting up the backgammon board. Their home quadrants should face opposite each other.
There is a simple way to study the backgammon board setup and learn where to put all the pieces. You have to give a number for each point, start with 1 and end at 24. Each quadrant has exactly one row of pieces of each color, though the pieces` count may vary.
The first quadrant in the board that is, the home quadrant contains the numbers from 1 to 6. You need to place 5 pieces of same color on the number 6.
The second quadrant contains the numbers between 7 and 12. Keep 3 pieces on number 8.
The third quadrant, which is on the opponent’s side of the board, contains numbers 13 to 18. Place 5 pieces on number 13.
The fourth quadrant, which is the opponent’s quadrant, contains numbers 19-24. You have to put 2 pieces on number 24.
In the same way, the opposite players can complete their side of setup. They should use the same count of pieces. However they can start the numbers from their quadrant. Even more simple way is to mirror the opponent’s pieces.
The game`s track is from the opponents home quadrant to the direction of the players home quadrant. There are many details available on playing backgammon, tips to play this game and some of the strategies of backgammon. It could be helpful to go through about those things before playing backgammon with real money.
